Triple Town maker: Either innovate or make 'shady, derivative crap'

Triple Town creator and Spry Fox CCO Daniel Cook took to the pedestal at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with a chip on his shoulder. (Given recent events, an understandable chip, but a chip nonetheless.) Cook delivered a talk during GDC recently that was more an attempt to light a fire under game makers than talk shop with fellow developers.

"There's a lot more to life than than cloning the work of others and merely adding your own 10 percent innovation," Cook said, according to Gamasutra. "I want designers to stand up and say: 'I am an inventor!' That way we have a chance to not only make a mark upon the world, but even change it."

Cook went on to guesstimate that the majority of game developers (80 percent) work for game studios that capitalize on the innovation of others. According to Gamasutra, he said that today's game genres are but the "tip of an iceberg" that will turn the game industry on its head in the coming decades. In addition to his take on the journey of the game designer, Cook gave the following pro tip for innovating in games:

"Designing from the root is an excellent way to promote invention. Often, when we begin making a new game, we look to a breakout hit and we wonder how we can improve it. Instead of doing that, go backwards," Cook said. "Reduce the new hit to its absolute new fundamentals. Pick one thing that is amazing about it that you love and have that at the core of what you want to do." (Hm, that sounds a lot like Spry Fox's match-three variant, doesn't it?)

Do too many game studios simply look to copy one another these days? What's the most innovative Facebook game right now?Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.